Private medical insurance in retirement

ukdw

I carried on for a few years with Bupa as they covered pre existing conditions if I stayed with them - but the premiums went up about 15% a year (even when inflation was low) and there were lots of excesses, but for a few years I felt I got value for money.  Deliberated about it for quite a while.  My GP saying he had Bupa himself didn't help - but finally gave up on it when they did another big price increase - so self fund mostly now.

stuhse

One option is to find out what the premium would be and pay it into savings account for the day you need it ...if ever. 

Loanranger21

Private medical insurance won’t help you if you are unfortunate enough to need to go to A&E.  we self fund and pay a set amount into a savings account every month which we refer to as the health fund. We decided to do this when premiums went up alarmingly as we aged. We also refer to this savings fund as the holiday fund. But we never run it right down in case we need it to fund a procedure . 

Albermarle

westv said:

I would imagine the OP would be offered a policy on similar terms (but not the same premium) by his current insurer.

In fact in my case they were very keen to offer continued cover, but I baulked at the high premiums.

lisyloo

Pat38493 said:

BoGoF said:

Would very much doubt it. I imagine your employer has a 'group' policy with the provider and each employee won't have an 'individual' policy.

Yes of course, but I’ve seen it written in a few places that some providers will let you convert your employer membership into a personal membership if you leave the company.  In any case, you can just take out a new policy with whatever private medical company.  I was also interested to see whether other retirees see this as an important item for budgeting.

Three options
1) carry on working. Would a 4 day week or 3 days week be possible so that you wind down and keep the insurance longer?
2) get quotes from current medical company, they may give you better terms.
3) vitality are affordable but usually a moratorium basis for first couple of years I.e. don’t expect pre-existing conditions covered for a few years.

Im 55 and healthy and see health as the number 1 important thing in life as you get older.
i plan to keep my job a bit longer and keeping the insurance is one of the draws. A 4 day or 3 day week being possible for me.
Alternatively I would go self-insurance. Pay for tests and consultant (low hundreds) to get you out of the big diagnostic queue, if you’re diagnosed with something serious then the NHS tends to be better, but it wouldn’t take you many years of premiums to save for a hip operation and you’d be arbiter of your own claims so can pick and choose when you go private.

westv

The medical insurance my company buys for me and my wife comes to around £3k a year.

Jimmithecat

https://www.saga.co.uk/health-insurance

I am very happy with them

chile_paul2

Pat38493 said:

BoGoF said:

Would very much doubt it. I imagine your employer has a 'group' policy with the provider and each employee won't have an 'individual' policy.

Yes of course, but I’ve seen it written in a few places that some providers will let you convert your employer membership into a personal membership if you leave the company.  In any case, you can just take out a new policy with whatever private medical company.  I was also interested to see whether other retirees see this as an important item for budgeting.

Having just left my last company I can confirm that their health insurance provider (Axa) has just written to me confirming that they would allow me to continue my policy on an individual basis with no need to do a health questionnaire and at the same cost.

Obviously different health insurers will have different approaches, but thought it would be worth sharing my recent experience.

tigerspill

When I retired, I was allowed to take on an individual policy with the same terms as the company group policy - including covering all existing conditions.  Current cost is around £2,000/year.  This is with Axa/PPP.

Pat38493

tigerspill said:

When I retired, I was allowed to take on an individual policy with the same terms as the company group policy - including covering all existing conditions.  Current cost is around £2,000/year.  This is with Axa/PPP.

Thanks - also my guess is that as soon as you are on an individual policy, if you make a claim they will ramp up the premiums the following year?   If it’s a group policy the increase gets spread out among the entire group.